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Ranti is a
restless soul who died in an accident after
watching his spouse cheating on her. Burnt with rage,
Ranti’s father unleashed Ranti’s spirit by tying her
pocong cord so she can’t rest in peace until she
fulfilled her vengeance.
Tali Pocong Perawan must’ve gained quite a profit to
draw enough attention from the money-crazed crappy
producer to churn another similarly stupid horror
movie. Yes, Dewi Perssik, the sexy singer comes back,
still with same mediocre acting, more vulgarity, and
none of them gave any plus to this movie.
The basic premise of Tiren could’ve been interesting.
As a custom among Javanese-Moslem tradition in
Indonesia, if you die you will be shrouded like a
mummy (covered with white cloth), commonly known as
pocong. This shroud is tied on the edge (like a candy)
and the cord should be untied on burial, so the spirit
can be set free. But if it’s tied then the spirit
remains trapped and can’t rest in peace. But, if you’re
talking about “Tiren” acronym, even at the first
impression when I read the title I never had any high
expectation that this movie will be a serious one,
since Tiren acronym has a humorous connotation. Tiren
is commonly referred to dead chickens that indeed
died “yesterday” or even for days but the dead meat
is smuggled into the market to be sold to public.
It’s an illegal practice by crooked sellers indeed,
but it does exist. I never thought that the movie
could end up to be this stupid.
It’s possible that Indonesian horror producers read
many reviews and criticisms stating that most current
horror movies are not as scary as its predecessors in
the 1980s or “The Suzzanna’s” era. So there you go,
some naive movie makers decide to blatantly apply the
formula of the 1980s horror into the current
production, i.e. mixing comedic scenes. But they
forget one thing, that despite the cheesiness and
weirdness of such formula n the 1980s horror, the
core of the movie itself is still horror, and still
scary that time, or at least weird in today’s standard.
This time, they simply think by hiring some comedians
to make situation hilarious they can cover up their
incompetence in handling the horror elements. Tiren
contains a lot, and I mean a lot bigger percentage of
comedic scenes than other current horror production.
Even the final scene in this movie is a comedic one,
not related to the main plot, simply peripherals, and
it lasts almost 20 minutes! The whole comedic scenes,
are performed decently by comedians like Kiwil, Yadi
Sembako, and even a veteran Laila Sari. The audience
indeed laughed, because they’re indeed funny, but hey,
I’m supposed to watch a horror movie, aren’t I?
Now let’s move to the ghost. We can’t expect more that
just appearances of pocong here and there which don’t
surprise us at all. So, nothing special with the
pocong. The ghost’s action actually refers back to
the 1980s horrors too; this vengeful spirit can appear
before the victim as a sexy woman who constantly
seduces the victim. But when the time comes, she will
show her real appearance. And actually this is
actually a very promising basic, since it is part of
the legend indeed particularly related to Sundel
Bolong. She usually appears as a sexy woman seducing
perverts, even up to the stage that the clueless
victims are having sex with this ghost, although it’s
just an illusion, cause in fact they’re having sex
with a corpse or messing around in the grave. Tiren
uses this concept, but fails to realize it. It could’ve
been scary, had the movie makers thought a bit
thoroughly about it. Alas, to make this ghost scary,
stupid approaches are used, such as simply changing
Dewi Perssik’s eyes into black (giving impression that
she has no eyes). Do you expect to scare us that way?
Do you think we’re that damn idiotic? OK, in the 1980
Sundel Bolong, Suzzanna didn’t use heavy make up yet
as a ghost but with her charismatic appearance she
could show herself as beautiful, innocent girl then
suddenly turn into a woman full of rage with such a
cold and chilling stare. O heck, Dewi Perssik is not
Suzzanna, unfortunately.
Now we come to the expected part: eye candies. In Tali
Pocong Perawan Dewi Perssik is co-starred with a very
sexy model, tall, slender, and certainly dress
provocatively. It’s similar to, here. She’s now
accompanied by Derriell Jacqueline who bravely exposes
her gorgeous asset, dressed in tank tops, or just
bra, in the shower, showing just her naked silhouette.
But that’s all of course. Unfortunately this idea
seems to be a kind of basic requirement in crappy
horror like this. I’m not impressed with Dewi Perssik’s
asset by the way. Others may, but I’m not, despite her
efforts to upscale her vulgarity, such as taking off
her panties.
How about acting? Err... what is that? Well, with such
crappy script can you expect these amateurs acting?
I could make a complete book on how horrendous their
acting and script. So, better not waste my energy and
time, as well as yours.
So, I also wondered who was behind all of this cow
dung. The director name is Emil G. Hampp. When I first
read that name, actually it sounds quite familiar but
I couldn’t remember anything related to that name.
Then I read my Indonesian Movie Catalogue, a handy
book containing main details of all Indonesian movies
produced since early 20th century until today.
Emil G. Hampp is actually quite productive. He’s
behind around 10 movies already. What kind of movies?
Well, once upon a time in the late 1990s, Indonesian
movie had its hard times, no fresh ideas created,
movie industry was desperate and certainly needed
a shot in he arm. The adult genre saved the industry
for awhile. No porn here of course, mostly contained
simply scenes of couples petting, kissing, caressing
each other, girls swimming and dancing in bikinis,
and sometimes performing lesbian acts, but still no
nudity. Plot? Forget it. Those are the movies that
dominated Indonesian movie productions in one of the
dark eras of Indonesian movie industry. Emil G. Hampp
is one the popular directors of such movies that time.
So there you are. Can’t blame an idiot trying to make
a living these days.
None.
Nothing to write home about, as usual.
Current productions of Indonesian horror movies seem
to have found its core formula to draw audience: sex
and humor, but not the horror itself. Alas, apparently
such formula are quite successful in the market so
it is more likely we’re going to see more crazy stuffs
like this in the future. Tiren is a simply a bad
mixture of horror with no scares, comedy, and
incompetence of movie making. The makers should be
shrouded and hanged.
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